He’d left us two boarders, in fact: Mama Tataba and a parrot named Methuselah.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

Methuselah seems a school-boy.

Herman Melville -- Moby Dick

Methuselah bestowed information on Epimenides.

Victor Hugo -- Les Miserables

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Standing before the Methuselah Tree, a gnarled and twisted bristlecone pine, it was easy to accept its great age.

Micheal Scott -- The Alchemyst

Why was it that Methuselah lived nine hundred years, and ’Old Parr’ one hundred and sixty-nine, and yet that poor Lucy, with four men’s blood in her poor veins, could not live even one day?

Bram Stoker -- Dracula

While other mice dropped in the terrarium disappeared within two days, this little brown Methuselah built itself a nest, stored the grains we gave it in various hideaways and scampered about in plain sight of the snakes.

Yann Martel -- Life of Pi

The various milkmen, grocers and butchers of the two former housewives have been praised to the skies or run into the ground so many times that in our imaginations they’ve grown as old as Methuselah; there’s absolutely no chance of anything new or fresh being brought up for discussion in the Annex.

Anne Frank -- The Diary of a Young Girl

"By God, master," said Sancho, "the island that I cannot govern with the years I have, I’ll not be able to govern with the years of Methuselah; the difficulty is that the said island keeps its distance somewhere, I know not where; and not that there is any want of head in me to govern it."

Miguel de Cervantes -- Don Quixote

So where’s the place in this world for a man who looks twenty but who is older than Methuselah, what man could stand the shock of a change like that?

Ray Bradbury -- Something Wicked This Way Comes

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The other day I saw Miss Trotter (that was), arrayed in them, trip into the travelling carriage at St. George’s, Hanover Square, and Lord Methuselah hobbled in after.

William Makepeace Thackeray -- Vanity Fair

The Utopian play by Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah, produced in 1921, converted the theme into a modern socio-biological parable.

Joseph Campbell -- The Hero With a Thousand Faces

And I guess I’ll be here forever, me and Methuselah.

Laura Hillenbrand -- Seabiscuit

Something like Methuselah syndrome or early Alzheimer’s disease?

Dan Simmons -- Hyperion

We’re starting work next week on Shaw’s ’Back to Methuselah’.

Arthur C. Clarke -- Childhood’s End

…thoroughly wise in regard to all her operations as if she had been put upon the stocks when he was a boy, and he had helped to lay her keel—who has come to his growth, and can hardly acquire more of natural lore if he should live to the age of Methuselah—told me—and I was surprised to hear him express wonder at any of Nature’s operations, for I thought that there were no secrets between them—that one spring day he took his gun and boat, and thought that he would have a little sport…

Henry David Thoreau -- Walden

It was a tradition common throughout cultures of the world to revere the elders of a society, and since the days of Methuselah, it had simply been assumed that the older a person was, the more life experience they’d had: Therefore, they were probably wiser than anyone else.

James A. Owen -- Here, There be Dragons

5:25 And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech.

The Bible -- Genesis

) Yes, believe me or not, as you like; but truths are by no means as long-lived at Methuselah—as some folk imagine.

Henrik Ibsen -- An Enemy of the People

"Now, you are my witness, Miss Summerson, I say I don’t care—but if he was to come to our house with his great, shining, lumpy forehead night after night till he was as old as Methuselah, I wouldn’t have anything to say to him.

Charles Dickens -- Bleak House

Under the eave of the porch our charge Methuselah screamed like a drowning man in his cage.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

Methuselah is an African Grey parrot with a fine scaly look to his head, a sharp skeptical eye like Miss Leep’s, and a scarlet tail.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

Long ago someone broke off the inches nineteen through thirty-six and assigned these to Methuselah for the conduct of his affairs.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

Methuselah may or may not have heard about this, for he mumbles badly.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

But in the case of the cursing parrot that first long rainy day, Methuselah could not be made to copy the Bible.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

Curiously exempt from the Reverend’s rules was Methuselah, in the same way Our Father was finding the Congolese people beyond his power.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

Methuselah was a sly little representative of Africa itself, living openly in our household.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

But the storm lashed sideways, battering the walls and poor Methuselah.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

Methuselah had never said "Damn" before, so this was something new, spoken right out very chipper in a feminine tone of voice.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

"Which one of you taught Methuselah to say that word?" he demanded.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

I myself would not curse, in or out of Methuselah’s hearing or even in my dreams, because I crave heaven and to be my father’s favorite.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

Furthermore, Methuselah didn’t just imitate words, he knew them.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

We already understood what was now dawning on my father: Methuselah could betray our secrets.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

I hadn’t even considered the irreversible spoiling of Methuselah’s innocence, which just goes to show I have much to learn.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

Methuselah was definitely in the girls’ camp.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

This happened often at our house, but we always knew it was Methuselah, since we did have a door and did not, as a rule, have visitors.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

From his big cage on the porch, Methuselah screeched at us in Kikongo.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

He shoved himself straight to his feet, strode to the porch, and flung open the door of Methuselah’s cage.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

Methuselah hunched his shoulders and sidled away from the door.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

In my father’s hands Methuselah looked like nothing but a feathered toy.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

Or I’d cut up fruit for Methuselah, still hanging around begging, and catch grasshoppers for Leon, the chameleon we keep in a wooden crate.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

REHCTACYLF ESIDARAP I also made a habit of following Methuselah as he made his way around our house in insecure spirals.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

Methuselah, like me, is a cripple: the Wreck of Wild Africa.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

In following Methuselah on his slow forays through the forest, I discovered the boys and men practicing drills.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

I wanted to think: Methuselah is playing a trick on me.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

We also watched Methuselah, who after four months of liberation still hung around our house mumbling.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

At first I wanted Methuselah to come back and live in his cage, until Father explained to me that this whole arrangement was wrong.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

We let Methuselah go because his captivity was an embarrassment to us.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

So I had to root for Methuselah to learn to be free.

Barbara Kingsolver -- The Poisonwood Bible

Methuselah sits puny and still in his avocado tree with his eyes ticking back and forth, unprepared for a new season of overwhelming freedom.